


Tranquility Run

by lirulin



Category: Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: F/M, Gen, Graphic Description, Gun Violence, Language Barrier, Mass Effect Kink Meme, Multi, Mutual Non-Con, Other, squad dynamics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-09
Updated: 2019-08-09
Packaged: 2020-08-13 12:21:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,488
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20174170
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lirulin/pseuds/lirulin
Summary: During a dangerous mission Shepard and her team lose communications and translators, unfortunately she is with alien squadmates rather than humans. They must improvise and attempt to communicate to escape, but in the process Shepard is seriously wounded.





	Tranquility Run

**Author's Note:**

> An old fill that I'm archiving for future me. Done for the Mass Effect Kink Meme (https://masskink.livejournal.com/769.html?thread=2077953#t2077953) and, as usual, has a shocking lack of kink. Originally posted: Sept,5 2010. Copied here with no additional editing.

Back in basic, long before she'd been anything but just a normal _maggot_ running the courses, there had been a training exercise designed, specifically, to deal with Turian code-talkers. It was stupid, given the fact that the war had been over long enough that their teachers hadn't seen combat, but _there it was._

It was a zero comm mission, took place in the Sea of Tranquility. No one ever planned to fight Turians, or anyone else, on equal ground. Humans were small, had relatively weak biotics, and had to back everything up with guns. The best, greatest equalizer, was the harsh embrace of vacuum and the weak grip of a dead astral body. The moon was perfect as a training ground, and they exploited it endlessly.

During the run, two teams had to infiltrate a base with a 360 degree field of fire, had to come in hot and sneak through without triggering the Combat optics or the flare sensors. They had to run silent, they had to run with cryo clips, and they had to run without environmental backup-containment. It was the single most difficult and most dangerous tactical exercise the Alliance Military ever put recruits through.

Sheapard had always believed that it was the very gauntlet itself. Every conceivable error promised a quick, excruciating death for every member of the team. There was zero room for error, zero room for foul-ups, and even a perfect run could still be decimated by sheer chance, by a single guard looking at them or catching a glint off any piece of shiny attached to the suits. Running silent meant running on hand signals, delivering complex commands in seconds and assuming that every single member of a team caught it, processed, and understood. 

No repetition, no questions, all go.

It was strange, after everything that had happened in the last couple of years, she couldn't remember how she'd passed that goddamned exercise. She knew she passed it, but the whole thing was like some disjointed nightmare of grey, black, and blinding white.

It was a shame she couldn't remember, really. With a shrill static ring still pulsing in her ears--she could feel the blood creeping down her neck, the pain in her ear throbbing like a hot needle--and both her comm and HUD burnt out like a cheap modem in an off-brand omnitool, she'd have given her left arm to recall that exercise with clarity.

At least they weren't in a null atmosphere, she mused as she tore the damaged helmet off and tossed it to the ground. It was more a hindrance than a help without any functional systems. The tropical air was hot, smelled vaguely of burnt flour, and felt like a splash of salt against her ear. She winced and shook her head, forced the sensation back like she knew she had to.

Behind them, the mechs were already powering up. They'd tripped the combat sensors and, with the base pulse beacon less than ten feet away, had burnt the shit out of all their communications. She looked to her left where Garrus was plastered back behind an outcropping of rocks, clutching at the pretty side of his face like he wanted to dig his talons through his mandible. To her left, Thane was ripping a hidden translator from the side of his head--it hit the ground with a sizzle and he crushed it under his shoe to cut the signal.

Her _right arm_, correction, she'd have given her _right arm._

If it had been Alenko and Williams, Jacob or Zaeed, hell...even Kasumi and Jack, she wouldn't have thought twice. Silent commands were so fucking common, she could have sent any of them square-dancing without having to say a word. With these two, though...she took a breath and swore quietly. Thane was deadly, had high level training...Garrus, he was military, he was a cop...either of them should be able to go totally silent, right?

Shepard reloaded her pistol and, as it charged with a hum, let out a sharp whistle. The sound startled her two compatriots and both the aliens' eyes were on her before the sound completed. She held up a hand and they both nodded as it remained in the air. 

At least they got the idea. 

The complex was small, but jam packed full of mechs and heavy classed vanguards. Worse, all of them had open communications. They needed to get in, set the place to blow, and get the hell out before anyone knew what was up. It was a Tranquility Run, plain and obvious, and Shepard gritted her teeth.

She pointed to herself and then Thane, made an arch with one hand and jerked a thumb at the north entrance. Thane stared at her and, after a moment, bowed slightly in a motion she recognized as acquiescence. She looked back at Garrus who was watching with rapt attention. She pointed to him, then to her eyes, then to the south side. He hefted his rifle, she nodded, and he returned the gesture. Apparently he'd been around enough humans to understand that one.

Without further instruction, they broke. Garrus covered them as they made for the foliage, his assault rifle firing off in quick bursts until they disappeared. Thane kept close, his sniper rifle out and ready. Without looking back, she motioned sharply to her left. She almost clipped Thane with the sudden stretch of her arm, but he caught the idea, banked left for cover as she went right, flanked the entrance they were going for.

Shepard halted behind a tree, plastered her back against it and looked immediately to her left for Thane. He'd gone farther, hadn't interpreted the motion to mean _stopping._She swore louder and moved around the tree. She caught sight of the edge of his coat in her periphery, between the trees, and pressed forward. They were almost out of solid cover.

Five mechs and one vanguard. A high powered bullet took the Asari's head clean off and Shepard broke cover. Five mechs then. All small loki models, nothing particularly deadly. One was knocked clean off its feet as she approached, smashed by a high caliber round. Three shots and she'd knocked the heads off three of them before they'd powered. The last was up and had its weapon locked just in time to have its torso severed. Shepard put it out of her misery with a harsh stomp to its servo.

Thane was at her side in moments and she passed through the door without hesitation. The hall was empty but for a single guard. A bullet took him out before he knew what hit him. They moved south, toward the center of the compound, she in front and Thane on her heels. As they came to the main section, she held out an arm, fisted her hand, and nearly clothes-lined the Drell. This time, he got the hint and pulled back just far enough to stay out of visual range. Shepard nodded when he held position.

The center of the compound was full of mercs. They were locked, loaded, and looking out the windows for them. At least a hundred in one room. Shepard scowled. A glint hit her across the eyes and she lifted her gun, snapped her vision up, across the catwalks. Garrus was there--her scowl deepened.

Apparently he realized he'd broken orders and formation. He lowered the scope he'd used to signal her and gestured across the distance. She recognized the pattern of symbols, it was a Turian military numeral system, code-talker, the exact reason they had the Tranquility Run training. She didn't know how to read it, but when he motioned around in a tight circle, she understood. They were surrounded, and it had been a lot of them to force Garrus inside and out of his post.

Shepard nodded tightly and lowered her gun. She was careful not to make any motions for a moment and closed her eyes as she pondered. The compound was a mining site, they'd planned on getting in, down, and beneath it to the equipment. Set it all to overload and book the hell out of dodge. The only entry to the lower levels, though, was a hatch in the middle of the floor.

The floor that was currently crawling with a small army of Eclipse mercs.

Shepard opened her eyes and let out a slow breath. Thane's hand came down on her shoulder, but she didn't recognize his expression. They were too subtle to discern between without auditory backup. Shepard held up her hand, brushed his off and looked between them. 

She motioned first to Garrus. He nodded and she continued. She pointed beneath them, to the main floor and held up a fist--attention down there, but hold. He stared and nodded, tapped his talons on his rifle. Shepard shook her head and Garrus blinked. His thumb jerked at his assault rifle and she nodded again. He looked confused until she tapped her clip pouch. His mandibles flared in surprise, but he nodded slowly.

Thane was still standing alongside her, his expression tight and unreadable. She pointed at him and then the vents. He followed her motion and then looked back at her. She motioned up and then drew a circle above her head--he needed to get to the roof, clear them a way out of here. He didn't like it, but he nodded. When she nodded, motioned for them to break, Thane interrupted her and pointed at Garrus.

The Turian was pointing at her, a stern look on his face. They wanted to know_ her_plan. Shepard nodded and held up her omnitool. She pointed at it and then the floor in the center of the room. Neither of her teammates took this well and started motioning in general, uncoordinated terms about how they thought it was a bad idea. Thane even hazarded warning her verbally--the Drell language was lyrical but this wasn't the time. Shepard held up a hand and scowled. Both of them went still and she opened her fist before motioning them to move out.

That one, they'd learned by now, apparently.

Without further hesitation, she activated her tactical cloak and jumped down from the catwalk. The moment her boots hit the floor, Garrus started firing and drew attention away from the sound. Not what she meant, but it would work out. She unloaded her thermal clips onto the floor around them and, inevitably, they were triggered by the stray, uncoordinated shots of the mercs. A hundred mercs suddenly dropped down to fifty--by the time she was through the hatch, it was closer to twenty-five.

As it turned out, emptying her clips had been a fucking awful idea. It turned out that the Eclipse mercs used the underground of the facility to store their spare mechs. Shepard mouthed a violent series of swear words as she jogged through the inactive robots. Her tactical cloak was still active, and would be for a few more minutes, but she had to work fast.

Something in this world had forgiveness for her: the console for the mining equipment still had power and was still linked in. She bypassed the security as fast as she could manage and overrode the safety protocols. The large equipment lining the walls of the underground hummed to life with jerking, violent starts, and continued to power until the cells were emitting high, dangerous whines.

It was time to go.

Shepard turned on her heel and froze in place as the Mechs started to rise up to standing positions. The sound of the equipment had been enough to trigger start-up. Her hesitation cost her dearly and her cloak gave a warning beep. Ten seconds. She cursed aloud and suddenly a room full of armed robots were looking in her direction. Silence be damned, she had six shots and--less than four minutes, if the smoke pouring off that laser was any indication--to get the fuck out of here.

She bolted for the hatch, but never made it.

As her cloak fizzled and faded out, her shields flared up, caught a fistful of gunfire and forced her into cover. The mechs were announcing her presence and babbling idly as Shepard pressed herself back against a mining-laser that was whining too high for her own comfort. Six shots.

She didn't have time or ammunition to waste picking them apart. She had to get to that hatch and could clear only the robots she had to. Fuck. She exhaled sharply and moved, didn't even look as she bolted from cover toward her goal. One mech was down, a bullet caught two as she ran. Her shields alerted her and went out as she shot the forth. The fifth's head exploded and a bullet grazed her leg. She never managed to fire the sixth as a high caliber round knocked her off her feet and across the floor. 

Her back hit the wall and jammed her armor against her spine. She tried to move up and a second shot grazed her shoulder, twisted her off balance and sent her back onto the ground. A third hit her in the leg and Shepard gaped. Her vision was bleary as she fired her last round and caught nothing but air. The pistol fell from her fingers and she pressed a hand against the high caliber wound--she couldn't feel it, couldn't feel anything in her torso, shit. It was an abdominal puncture.

Shit.

Shit, shit, _shit._

Her vision was black around the sides and getting darker as the Lokis approached. An alarm went off on one of the lasers, she only had a few seconds. Hilariously, as her vision blanked and she was left staring, sightless, at the approaching drones, she remembered how she'd passed the Tranquility Run.

* * *

Her eyes were so far back in her head, when she regained consciousness it felt like they had to come all the way around, once and again before she saw daylight. It was bleary above her, a thick mix of air, light, and pain that hovered in front of her eyes. There was something that shifted, like she could taste colors above her face, twisting metal glints and brass trumpet noise.

She blinked hard and nothing changed.

Her mouth tasted like copper and smoke, her nose was full of blood. There was grass on the back of her neck and her shoulders and her legs. Where was her armor? Where was _she_?Shepard tried to force herself up and her stomach gave a sharp, rolling lurch, sent her back and screaming as her skull rolled against the hard ground.

Firm pressure on her sternum forced her back against the ground and a hard band of fabric fitted between her teeth--a gag? Her eyes flew open and she tried to struggle through the pain. It was a few seconds before she realized that the shapes above her were Garrus and Thane. Why were they gagging her? Her eyes fluttered and her chest jerked beneath Thane's hands as her breathing calmed.

They were talking to her, hushed and low. It looked like they didn't even understand one another, given that it sounded like they were pretty much offering her the same assurances in different languages. Garrus removed the fabric from her mouth--not enough for a gag. Was he keeping her from swallowing her tongue? Keeping her quiet? Neither seemed rushed to move their position.

"_Kkyhper'di._" Her eyes focused above her head, on Garrus. He was repeating that word in the same quiet tone, over and over. When she made eye contact, it seemed to calm him down. Her arms were shaking at her sides--she couldn't feel her wounds earlier, but she had no damn problem doing it now. 

Thane was talking, murmuring a series of slow _L_'s and sliding vowels. She heard the word _shiha_ in it and he pulled her attention downward. Garrus's hand went under her head, carefully picked it up off the dirt and helped her to see what Thane was doing without a repeat of her previous spasmodic episode.__

_ _They'd taken her out of her armor and torn her under-suit where they'd needed to. Her stomach was wrapped, but the deep, wet shine on the surface told her just how effective it was. It was harder to breathe while sitting. Thane was over her leg, a knife in hand, and murmuring in his lyrical voice as he motioned to the bullet wound in her thigh. He had a pack of medigel, but it wasn't open._ _

_ _"_Shit_," she replied reflexively, her voice ragged, and closed her eyes. Her hand jerked at her leg and Thane understood her acceptance of his task well enough. Before the knife even grazed her skin, Garrus pulled the band of fabric against her mouth. This time, she took it willingly and gritted her teeth against the rolled tube._ _

_ _Whatever sedative they'd pumped into her was fucking awful for dealing with pain, but it helped to wick away her recognition of the situation. She lurched against Garrus's hold as Thane dug the round out, but once it was done she was left only with a soreness and a vague recollection of actions, somewhere beneath the swirling color in her throat. _ _

_ _She sighed against the fabric as he broke open the Medigel over the wound. It tingled across her skin, sent chills up her leg and numbed the muscles in her thigh instantly. If she ever found the guy who invented that stuff, she'd kiss him full on the mouth just to say _Hello._ Garrus removed the fabric from her mouth again and gently replaced her to the ground._ _

_ _She could feel the air above her shift and hear the quiet murmurings between the two as they tried to converse. She opened her eyes to find them pointing at her stomach and signaling in what must have passed for alien sign-language. It looked like Garrus was trying to explain how to take apart a carburetor and Thane was instructing him how to play Brahms Lullaby on a violin in response. She snorted a quiet laugh and regretted it with a throaty, choked off groan._ _

_ _All eyes were on her and Garrus's mandibles flared--irritation? Thane looked at him and then back at Shepard. Her vision was jittery, was she shaking? Thane muttered something, a quiet prayer, and added something a little less than dispassionate toward Garrus before he leaned over her. Thane muttered something to her, but she had no fucking clue what he was on about. He didn't seem willing to back up and explain though, and Shepard just blinked, heavily._ _

_ _When he slanted his lips across hers, she tried to recoil, but the ground refused to let her. Thane took the tensing of her lips with the same flat reaction he always displayed and simply remained pressed up against her. Garrus above her was talking, repeating that word and motioning again. Was he trying to convince her to make out with Thane?_ _

_ _What the fuck was going on?_ _

_ _Thane pulled back, just far enough to mutter an apology to her--because that was what it had to be--and there was searing, all encompassing pain as he pressed his hand down against her stomach. Shepard gaped blindly and arched against him. Her eyes rolled back, and he took advantage of the situation, pressed his lips across hers and--was that his _tongue?__ _

_ _ _WHAT THE FUCK?_ _ _

_ _Her hands scrambled for purchase, gripped at him, but he was immovable and she had lost a lot of blood. Her legs weren't strong enough to kick her free, nor enough to move him. Garrus's hand picked hers off of Thane's coat and pressed them to the ground above her head. The other moved to press against her sternum and pin her down._ _

_ _The sharp pang of betrayal hurt more than the slug in her gut._ _

_ _Her lungs fought for oxygen, but with Thane's lips sealed across her's she had no way of acquiring it. Her chest jerked and lent a brief spike of strength to her body. It was all adrenaline and panic, but it let her arch up and twist against the two aliens. They were stronger, in good health, and pushed her back down, pushed the air out of her and kept her against the grass. She was choking,_ drowning_._ _

_ _Thane broke away from her first and lingered only briefly before practically throwing himself back. Shepard took a gaping breath, but Garrus was still holding her, keeping her down. It was hard to think as she panicked and his quiet, cacophony of linguistics were not helping. Even his smile made her sick--she was nauseous, it swelled through her all at once, and the shaking in her limbs intensified._ _

_ _Her brain was having trouble holding onto thoughts as she stared up at the sky. They'd hardly finished by the time she started forgetting them. The whorl of colors, of _presence _in the air was like vertigo. Her stomach lurched and her lungs chugged, and she fluttered toward unconsciousness. Garrus's talons moved to the side of her face and she tried not to look at him as he spoke to her, urgently, quietly, with increasing volume._ _

_ _She could feel liquid heat on her face, behind her eyes. Either the water in her lungs, in her bones was leaking out, or she'd started crying. She was gaping for air and Garrus was speaking more urgently. He kept repeating that word, over and over, like a mantra. Even as she slipped back into unconsciousness, it was in her ears. _ _

_ _When she woke up again, it was fitful, painful, like piercing a veil. No, not _like_...something _**was**_ piercing._ _

_ _It was in her chest, popped the pressure in her ribs and deflated it like a balloon. Air brought with it consciousness and Shepard came to in brief flashes. She wasn't on grass any more, couldn't feel _anything._ She tumbled along, through motions of light and color, in that strange place where time didn't seem to flow correctly._ _

_ _When seconds became seconds again, she was on the Normandy, in the medical bay. She felt like she'd been thrown in the fight pit with a rabid varren. Everything hurt everywhere, and she had the thickest hangover of her life looming behind her eyes. Her stomach was wrapped in heavy bandages, secured with hard foam and a Medigel autotimer. She didn't try to move into it, that was a mistake she didn't want to repeat._ _

_ _"Shepard."_ _

_ _She almost bolted upright at that, though._ _

_ _"By the Spirits," Garrus announced, his voice loaded with an infuriating amount of irritation. His hand came down across her shoulder and pushed her down again and Shepard practically snarled at him. "What the hell were you thinking?"_ _

_ _"Excuse me?" Shepard snapped and Garrus glared, or as near as he could._ _

_ _"Cover you with an assault rifle while you run into an armory and set charges?" Garrus snarled back. "You're lucky Thane thought you meant you needed escape cover or you'd be indistinguishable from roasted Pyjak right now."_ _

_ _"What?" Her offense, the skin crawling sensation of his hand on her, pushing down, was forgotten as his voice ratcheted with an uncomfortable amount of righteous indignation._ _

_ _"He hauled you out, bleeding like a stuck Hanar, over his shoulder. How he shimmied through the vents with you on his back, I'll never know," Garrus leaned back in his chair and let out a long ragged sigh. There was a long silence and he shook his head, his voice heavy with morbid fascination. "Spirits, how did we make it out of there?"_ _

_ _Garrus shook his head and Shepard stared at him, waited for him to continue his rant. Eventually, though, her impatience took over._ _

_ _"What does _Kipperdi_ mean?" Shepard asked suddenly. Her anger, her panic melted back into confusion. A thread of betrayal twisted in her gut, but it was hard to feed it, hard to keep it there with him scowling and fretting over her._ _

_ _"Kipperdi?" Garrus repeated slowly and stared at her. His eyes danced laterally and he blinked as he caught onto the thought. "I was saying your name," he answered. "Trying to calm you down."_ _

_ _"_That's_ how you hear my name?" Shepard asked almost incredulously. She added, in a much more hushed and slightly suspicious tone: "What the fuck was that about, Garrus?"_ _

_ _Garrus exhaled thickly and removed his hand from her shoulder. He rested his arms on his knees and took a deep breath before he looked her in the eye. "You had a bullet in your...stomach, I think." He motioned vaguely to her abdomen. "I knew enough about human legs to know we wouldn't hit anything important, not digging that one out. Thane was hesitant but he did it anyway."_ _

_ _He paused and Shepard stared. "We couldn't do anything about it, and your breathing was getting tighter, like you were drowning."_ _

_ _"Need negative pressure," Shepard clarified, "it's how we breathe."_ _

_ _Garrus shrugged. "We tried to keep you out while we waited for the ship, but you kept waking up. Every time you did, your heart raced and the bleeding got worse, made you convulse and we could almost see it rupture farther."_ _

_ _"Get to the point," Shepard encouraged quietly, sharply, and Garrus nodded._ _

_ _"Drell are...poisonous isn't right, but they have an effect on Humans, on Asari," he explained and his hands started making that same set of strange hand motions, the ones she'd seen before. "It's in their mouths somewhere, on their tongues, I don't know the specifics. When you get it in your systems, it's like a drug. Puts you down, makes you..." His expression shifted, twitched with irritation. "Makes you susceptible, pliant. I've seen it knock people out, if they have enough of it in a short time." _ _

_ _He looked up at her, smiled with a weak twitch of his mandibles. "Wreaked hell in C-sec, as you can imagine."_ _

_ _"You had Thane stick his tongue in my mouth to _drug me?_"hepard prompted blankly. "How did you get him to agree to that?"_ _

_ _"I didn't," Garrus clarified, "Not really, anyway. He thought I was telling him it was a funerary right, kissing a dying human, something along those lines. I knew just enough Drell to...to well, _encourage that idea._"_ _

_ _"You lied to him about it?" Shepard asked, her eyes wide. She couldn't find it in herself to be angry, not anymore, she just felt...confused._ _

_ _"Trust me, I already feel like the scum of the galaxy," Garrus defended before she could say anything else. "He caught on fast when he saw you relax, almost punched me in the neck for it, too."_ _

_ _"Thane did?" She had a goddamned hard time imagining that._ _

_ _"Drell are _very_ big on consent," Garrus explained. "He was...resistant to the idea that he needed to keep doing it, but he did anyway. When you started crying, though, he just stopped...dealing with it. Shut down completely."_ _

_ _There was a long silence._ _

_ _"I've never seen you cry, Shepard," Garrus explained and looked down at his laced hands. "That look you gave me, the one you gave Thane..." He stood up abruptly and turned on his heel...metaphorically. He took a deep breath and let it out in a slow hiss. "I've never felt like a _rapist_ before, Shepard. It's..._haunting._"_ _

_ _Garrus was facing the windows, turned away from her and hunched slightly, uncomfortable, almost cowed. Shepard stared at him for a minute and shook her head. She pushed herself up, despite the hollow ache in her chest, in her gut, and let out a loud sigh. Garrus looked back at her, briefly, and she motioned silently to the chair._ _

_ _"Take out your translator," she ordered, her voice and demeanor even. Garrus blinked, confused as he retook his seat._ _

_ _"What? Why?"_ _

_ _"I want to teach you how to actually say my goddamned name," Shepard told him, a wry smile on her face. "It isn't Kipperzi, or whatever the fuck."_ _

_ _Garrus stared at her but did as she asked. His visor came away and darkened as it deactivated. He rested his hand in his lap and stared at her, silent and waiting. Her wry smile maintained._ _

_ _"Shep-ard," she stated very slowly. "Jay-nuh."_ _

_ _"_Kcha...kkya,_" he attempted the initial sound twice and gave up, shot her a look._ _

_ _"Sh," she repeated and made the motions very clear. He mimicked it with mild success. It sounded more like a Z than anything else, but it was a far cry closer._ _

_ _"_Zyepar'd,_" he attempted and she nodded. It was about as close as he was going to get. "_Jhain?_"_ _

_ _She smiled and he responded in kind. He offered up his name, in its original pronunciation, and she balked slightly. She shook her head and he let out a quick laugh as he replaced his visor and reactivated the translator._ _

_ _"Fuck Turian," Shepard told him, in no uncertain terms._ _

_ _"Is that a promise?" Garrus teased and she snorted._ _

_ _"Go get Thane," she ordered with a wave of her hand and Garrus, his head held much higher, stood and left Medical._ _

_ _It took some thinking, in the silence, to decide if she was angry or not. Fortunately, given how long it was taking, Garrus seemed to be having a time convincing Thane to show his face. Shepard prodded the bandage across her abdominals and frowned. Anger was...too strong a word, she was annoyed, maybe. Not with them, not specifically, but with the whole situation. By the time Garrus escorted Thane into Medical, she'd made up her mind._ _

_ _"I'll just leave you two to dis--"_ _

_ _"No you don't, Vakarian," Shepard interrupted evenly and pointed at the ground beside her bed. "Over here. Plant it. You too, Thane."_ _

_ _The Drell was silent as he approached the bed. His arms were folded neatly behind his back and his head was down, vision cast on the floor. His expression was unreadable, besides the scattered, clear signs of apology written in his form._ _

_ _"The first time I ever went on a Tranquility Run, I was about nineteen," Shepard started. "We had to navigate over the range just above the Sea of Tranquility on Luna. It was my job to disable the turrets, and I did a piss-fucking-poor job of it. _ _

_ _"I was goddamned lucky it wasn't live-fire, if it had been, I'd have lost more than the ability to move my exosuit leg." Both sets of eyes were on her as she continued. "I was team leader, had one leg frozen, disabled, and was hobbling my way through this null-environment compound, fighting against a VI and a handful of cadets._ _

_ _"My teammates were quick, smart, and took directions well. We understood each other, had trained for months on the hand signals, the strategies we were going to use," she took a breath. "I maneuvered us into a situation where we could win, but we'd have to lose a man. As the only person who'd failed their job, I took one for the team._ _

_ _"A recruit named Smith saved my ass, not from death, but from the retention and reprimand of failure. Hacked my suit, got me up and running against the game rules, with time against us, and we all made it out. He risked his career to help me out." She looked up at them._ _

_ _"It was a hard test, but nothing I considered particularly valid, not until today. For fifteen years, I haven't been able to recall how I passed that test, couldn't remember how I got out. It just came back to me."_ _

_ _Shepard moved, pushed back the covers that Chakwas had undoubtedly tucked around her, and swung her legs over the side of the bed. Both the aliens made to stop her, but she held up her hand. They recognized the motion now, knew it through live-fire. She set her hand on the light scar on her thigh and clicked her tongue against the roof of her mouth._ _

_ _"Apparently, I don't learn my lessons very well," Shepard continued. "Thankfully, I have teammates around who can pull my ass out of the fire."_ _

_ _"Does the name of the task reference this latent recognition?" Thane prompted. He sounded uncertain, ill at ease. Shepard looked at him and considered it._ _

_ _"Sure," she lied._ _

_ _It was named after the location, but it definitely made her feel safer, more at ease, knowing the lengths of discomfort they'd all been through, they'd all go through again. Her feelings of betrayal felt so petty now, as she recognized the quietly hopeful look in Thane's eyes and the awkward, proud shuffle in Garrus's stance._ _

_ _She actually cracked a smile watching them._ _

_ _"Sure it is," she repeated and shrugged._ _

_ _"I should hate to imagine how Humans seek Serenity," Thane added quietly and Shepard laughed._ _


End file.
